Michael Clarke has forever polarised opinion. There are people who like him for his straight talk while others disagree with him strongly. Michael, however, remains unfazed. His take is simple, “I have always believed in speaking my mind.”
On his birthday, it was a pleasure to speak to the lower middle-class Western Suburbs boy from Sydney who, by his obsessive love for the game of cricket and his passion and discipline, played 115 Tests for Australia. A respected voice and a dear friend, Michael is commentating at the moment on the IPL. Be it the Ferrari 355, which was beyond reach as a young boy growing up in the suburbs, or a seven-storey six-bedroom townhouse on the beach, Michael’s story is proof that with hard work, dreams do come true.
But in all this, he hasn’t changed as a person. We are close friends and that’s been a constant for both of us. Even when I served my ban, at no point did Michael even refer to it. And he is one whose opinion on the game I value a lot. So, on the eve of his 44th birthday, it was natural that we would shoot a very special episode of Backstage With Boria. And as usual, Michael did not hold back.
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“If you ask me to identify one player who has stood up this IPL, I will say it is Kuldeep Yadav,” he said. “He always had the talent. But now what he has is the mental strength. That’s the difference. You can see he is out-thinking the batter. I was very close to Warnie [Shane Warne] and his biggest strength was how he could read the game perfectly. He could beat the batter mentally as well. That’s what I am starting to see in Kuldeep. He isn’t young anymore. He knows he has the ability and he is at his peak now, if you ask me. Delhi goes to him when the going is at its toughest, and each time, he delivers.”
A brief pause and, just as I was about to ask if he’d want to see Kuldeep on the Test tour of England, he started again. “I will go on and say India should pick him for the England tour and he could be India’s X-factor,” said Michael. “In Leeds, there will be movement and teams don’t always pick spinners. But all the other venues, on days 3, 4 and 5, there will be assistance and Kuldeep can be your X-factor. If [Mohammed] Shami is fit and if you get [Jasprit] Bumrah, all you need is Kuldeep to beat England in England.”
He also went on to say that he did see Rohit Sharma as captain for the tour, and still believed that Rohit could serve Indian cricket in the longest format. “I think Rohit still has the game,” said Michael. “Class is permanent and you have seen that in the Champions Trophy final. He would be an ideal No. 5. He can face the second new ball if needed, and if there are early wickets, he can hold things up as well. But Rohit loves to open and can blunt the new ball as well. If I was an Indian selector, I’d pick Rohit for England as the captain and leader.”
Stay happy, mate, and have a great birthday commentating on Virat Kohli versus Shubman Gill tonight.
Full interview on RevSportz at 12 noon.
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